status. arthel: i do, i do. i'm good there. next time you fill in for eric, how about i come over there and we have, i don't know. >> it would be my honor. arthel: it's been a pleasure, we are back in one hour 4:00 p.m. eastern, join us then in the meantime, journal editorial is up next. ♪♪ paul: welcome to the journal editorial. president biden this week ordering the u.s. intelligence to dig deeper into the origins of covid reversing course after his administration shut down the state department inquiry earlier this year. an investigation with circumstantial evidence that the outbreak of the virus may have started with a laboratory leak and wuhan, china. widely dismissed by mainstream media and public health

officials for the last 14 months. let's bring an "wall street journal" columnist editor, dan henninger and editorial page writer, adam. adam, you follow this more than a year. why did the biden administration do the quick reversal this week? what's driving this? >> i think they are starting to recognize and they have from the beginning the administration, the previous administration has gotten good intelligence that made a lovely seemed like a plausible theory and they couldn't reject it so i'm told the state investigation being moved around was bureaucratic wrangling but the important thing the intelligence community is going to be overseeing that. paul: so we have, what have we learned in the last year, adam? what is the best evidence we have for the lab theory?

>> the one particular incriminating piece of information the state department put out in january was that there were researchers who had symptoms consistent with covid at the wuhan institute of virology in autumn 2019 which would suggest it's entirely possible they got sick there and it spread beyond their, that is one particularly damning information but the general idea we have known for more than a year. paul: right but we've known for years but the who has tried to explore that but they've come up empty. what else evidence do we have other than that from the state department? >> right, there is also the question of what exactly the wuhan institute of virology was studying in one sample they had was 96% similar to covid which

suggests there's some degree of plausibility it could have come from the lab but the fundamental problem the chinese authorities simply allowed for an open investigation, it's going to be controlled by them and nothing that would make them look bad would be allowed to come out so unless there is a weaker or person who comes forward, it looks like it's going to be difficult to get that smoking gun and it's the question of what it looks like. paul: i guess dan, the other bits of circumstantial evidence is there hasn't emerged any alternative natural explanation. so far the chinese have refused to turn over their records and have access to the people at the w iv. >> the internal explanation was a natural source, they have weakened clearly and it's looking more and more like it

came out of this virology lab. the question in my mind, if we establish that were come to a logical conclusion it originated there, what we do next about that? this caused the pandemic to devastate the entire world and i think there is a big political question that has to be faced, the national security community over the last several years has come to the consensus including democrats, republicans that the chinese communist government poses a serious threat in global order. we seen it in hong kong, fbi, thousands of investigations of espionage inside the u.s. but what we are discovering is that the scientific community is still intertwined with communist china. doctor fauci has come to admit the nih directly or indirectly on the some of the research at

that virology institute. there are many instances like that where the chinese have got themselves involved in the west and now perhaps with this information about the wuhan virology lab, we can come to a consensus about resisting what the chinese communist government has done here and in the past. paul: adam, why were there so many scientists concluding fauci so dismissive of the possibility? scientists are supposed to be about opening inquiry. >> i recently spoke to an academic in switzerland study file threats and she told me about a year ago, april 2020 she was preparing an article explaining why the lab leak theory is possible and we are exploring and she ultimately published it but she was one of the few scientists and told me she was kind of terrified to be exploring this out in the open and i think that says a lot, there are quite a few scientists

all along that it was a decent theory but prominent ones came out quickly and they were categorical and it seemed like a lot of scientists didn't want to side with the trump administration suggesting this was a possibility and others just wanted to look good within the community and didn't want to rock the boat and it got out of hand. it's unfortunate we lost so much time when we should have been exploring that. paul: a big hit i think to anthony fauci credibility. still ahead, the debate over critical race theory and schools. republican lawmakers across america pushing from the k-12 curriculum. ♪♪

tennessee this week becoming the latest gop led state to ban the teaching of critical race theory and its public schools.

governor phil signed the monday as american lawmakers across the country push back on his inclusion in the k-12 curriculum, more than a dozen states introduced or enacted laws similar to the one in tennessee where schools risk losing state funding if they violate that measure. we are back with dan henninger, wall street journal editorial : and senior fellow, jason riley. jason, first on definitions, what is vertical race theory for those who haven't been following this debate? >> derives from marxism and gained currency in the 1970s so where there are power structures, he was talking about worker and being a zero-sum game in terms of who would prevail, the critical race theory is with

racial power structure so white versus black in this case and it says the problem in terms of racial disparity are not only the fault of whites but the responsibility of whites to solve and that is the promise being discussed. paul: jillian, what is going on, what is the state doing here and how many are doing this? >> you mentioned tennessee and idaho, oklahoma and other states in your scene in some cases local school board level but it's interesting if you delve into what they are saying, a lot of these lawmakers say when you teach critical race theory in the classroom, you run into discrimination problems the idea that race has morality, you can tell a lot about somebody by the color of their skin or their

gender and that is the most important thing about that person so there's a lot of concern about that and there's concern about the factual base of these teachings, you've got things that are political opinions and it's important to engage in these arguments when teachers say is indisputable, it must be accepted and a social stigma if you question them. paul: dan, the biden administration education department is promoting some of this to the 6019th product through the new york times project about the founding of the american republic saying it wasn't really 1776, it was 1619 when the first slaves arrived and that's getting pushback in congress. >> mitch mcconnell and a number of other senators sent a letter

to the secretary suggesting or strongly arguing he should not use the federal government money or authority to impose the teaching of the 1619 theory on the american founding and you know, this is cicely why all these states are legislatures passing laws to pushback, restrict or even ban this because it imposing, it's one thing to say we have to have a conversation, dialogue or discussion, that's not what is happening here. the school systems have been imposing vertical race theory education for the 1619 project on their school system creating backlash from parents whose kids are coming home saying what is this all about? that is the problem here among the founders had a theory that you should have to come these things through the democratic process rather than imposing them on people and that's why

all these bands are taking place in what seems to be a dispute over race. paul: jason, some on the left make the argument that it's censorship for these dates to ban this teaching, why not just let it happen, open up there's no need for states to say you can't teach critical race theory? >> i disagree with that. we don't teach kids the moon is made out of cheese because it's not true and neither is the promise that you can put flavoring at the center of americans founding, which is what the 1619 product does. the least interesting thing about america might be slavery. lavery is an institution that existed for thousands of years, pretty much every society down through history. what is remarkable about america

is not the slaves past, it's emancipation that makes america remarkable in the idea that you can put slavery at the center of america's founding and teach it to our children fraudulent about the find it remarkable there's so much inflection going on here, countless about america's founding, none of them by hannah jones i might add and get, the real experts on this and there are a few who pushback on this but not nearly enough, the people who study this issue, they have been buying into the walls narrative, i find it very disturbing. paul: nicole hannah jones is the architect of the 1619 product and the other two you referred to our historians so thank you, jason. thank you all. when we come back, negotiations continue on a bipartisan plan, what a deal be good for

republicans? $6 trillion budget proposal says about his policy priority. next. ♪♪

look...if your wireless carrier was a guy, you'd leave him tomorrow. not very flexible. not great at saving. you deserve better - xfinity mobile. now, they have unlimited for just $30 a month. $30 dollars. and they're number 1 in customer satisfaction. his number? delete it. deleting it. so break free from the big three. xfinity internet customers, take the savings challenge at xfinitymobile.com/mysavings or visit an xfinity store to learn how our switch squad makes it easy to switch and save hundreds.

president buying this week saying the time is almost up for negotiating bipartisan infrastructure deal. senate were hogan's thursday unveiled their latest counter offer $928 billion plan that narrows the gap of the white house the latest $1.7 trillion plan but a final deal is far from certain, president unveiled $6 trillion budget that expand federal spending to levels not seen since world war ii. let's bring in fox news contributor, carl rove, he served as senior advisor to george bush senior. let's talk about the, you have a

5050 senate, a narrow house majority, narrowest and decades and get their pushing through truly a remarkably expensive addition to the federal government, michael levels of spending, the biggest tax hikes since 1968 and is going to send us to levels of the gdp, why do they. >> they don't think they need to sell it, they think they can ram it through but they are going to have difficulty selling to the american people. interesting new set of poles out by a nonpartisan group, they sampled ten congressional districts held by democrats and hundred districts and eight out of ten sticks, voters said if the member voted for $4 trillion funding measure they'd be less likely to vote for them in in all ten districts by democrats,

all ten they said voters were less likely to support somebody who supported a $2 trillion increase in the deficit and that's exactly what democrats are trying to sell, it will blow up in their faces whether they get it or not, it will blow up in their faces in 2022. paul: the idea is we are going to sell this, if they get through it, let's say they get 3 trillion or three and a half trillion, they will still have it in a big way, much of their agenda and then send the economy recovering from the pandemic will still be strong, while they say look, this bill is driving and reelect us in 2022. >> i think there are two problems, one is i think most believe the economy is but it's going to be strong because it was strong before throwing off the rails by the coronavirus so they think it welcome back on

its own and second as it's coming back and we know one thing is happening, prices are going up. i read a report by my former white house colleague pointing out was just about a% in the increase prices, 2% so people lost about 1.2% in purchasing value and they know that they know that when they go to the grocery store and fill up their car and make a purchase, everybody feels a sense prices are going up. paul: well, you think there is going to be a deal between the republicans and the white house and who would benefit from? in a deal like this, who do you think benefits more? >> it depends on the nature of the deal about the infrastructure deal going back to that pole, it was interesting and majority of the voters in that pole across ten districts believe the infrastructure deal

on the bipartisan way not on a partyline vote, they are willing to accept that so i think they get into the details, how are you going to pay for it? how much will be taken getting covid relief money and how much will be baked into the budget and so forth. democrats would benefit slightly more by getting something done, republicans would benefit by not being on a issue where american people something needs to be done but it's easy for the democrats to overplay by saying we did that on a bipartisan basis, now we are going to get the rest of it through on a partyline vote, i think it's unlikely to get the deal but the more the republicans appear to get things done in a reasonable responsible fashion and if it doesn't come together, they can show what they tried to do versus what went through. paul: i agree, i think it's unlikely to catch a deal. president biden just want to get as much as he possibly can, a

trillion dollars will do it. let me ask you to turn to the january 6 commission which senate republicans now filibustered to stop it, how politically risky is it for the republicans? >> i think it's problematic in the short run because it looks like they have, they are trying to draw attention away from the ugliest moment in history. in the other hand, we are going to have lots of cases of plea agreements and as it goes forward, it will continue to dodge republicans. i wish we could have started off in a different place with nancy pelosi clearly highly partisan approach to this in which it could be a way to achieve what happened in the aftermath of 9/11, it's a highly respected group of senior states on both parties not out to get political pain but nancy pelosi headed

down that and we saw, we had 54 in favor including six republican's which means we had to democrats missing and 35 opposed which means we had i think nine republicans not their voting certain issue on both sides to bring out the entire squad. paul: and quickly, karl, joe biden 54% approval rating in the polls, how do you read that? >> i think that's probably right if you look at the label in the same range in the congressional district, it's been relatively stable but again i don't think it's anything for the 2020 -- 2022 election it's not as bad as it could be for democrats because he's popular, somewhat popular but the things he's pushing are not. he still in the honeymoon period, there's no real opposition to it as these issues sure from the american people,

tax issues he's talking about, the more spending, the bigger deficits he's talking about and the more will be concerned about all of this. paul: thanks, appreciate it. still ahead, year after the murder of george floyd spike in crime brought some cities to rethink plans to defund the police. ♪♪

democrats really led by the liberal elites made that calculation and we are seeing in los angeles, minneapolis and detroit, baltimore, you cannot demonize officers rotatably resources and expect them to do the job that desperately needs to be done. paul: republican senator kim scott of south carolina addressing the spike in violent crime in american cities. this week marks one year since the murder of george boyd by minnesota police officer sparking protests across the country calls to defund the police. floyd polk city of minneapolis alone homicide between january 1 last week of 108% in 2020 and 153% in other cities as well, having some to rethink slashing

funds. julian, a year later, the larger legacy of george floyd police reform or a spike in crime? >> i think spike in crime is really, you're seeing it across cities, dramatic increases homicides, shootings, advocated assault and other crime. i think the push to reform the police, the police movement has counterintuitively, if you want a more diverse police force for instance, cutting officers is going to leave you with a police force that's mostly white and male. if you want more training for de-escalation, that cost money and it takes away from that so what we are seeing is consequences of this but also it's been counterproductive to

the strategy. paul: jason, what is your take on it a year later? police reform movement has run out of steam or are we going to see something on capitol hill? should. >> i hope capitol hill stays out of it frankly unless state and local leaders take care of this. i think the focus on policing has been misplaced from the beginning. the problem in these are not the police or criminals, even in minneapolis, george floyd death was around 100 homicides, one involved police. i was a gunrunner shooting up police, they returned fire so this whole idea we should be focusing on policing has been misplaced from the beginning and it's not just defund police efforts, even mind what else has been going on this past year. you have people released from prison early because of routing to address covid, you had so-called bail reforms pushed by

progressives that take away discretion from judges and prosecutors on who should be locked up, while awaiting trial and who should be released so the combination of packing police and then these other reforms, it would have been a miracle if violent crime did not go up. paul: are we seen crime emerge, reemerge after years of essentially going away reemerging as a potentially dominant issue in electoral politics? >> i think so, certainly at the local level. a couple of examples on opposite ends of the spectrum, a very progressive prosecutor was up for reelection running against a black law & order candidate, he won the election in large part because white voters in the city of philadelphia voted to reelect him meanwhile in new york city

we are having a merrill election and several candidates are running on law & order platform, eric adams, andrew young, ralph mcguire, running against progressive candidates who are not going back from the idea that the police should themselves be restrained. new york attorney general lakisha james this past week introduced a bill that would lower the bar for prosecuting the police and restrict the level they can use when making arrests so these issues are front and center in front of the voters, thank heavens and that's probably the only way we are going to get any kind of solution we get our arms around this problem because the progressives are not going to step back no matter violence and crime, they are just not going to. paul: we had in our paper this week, the former clinton

strategic advisor who basically said first of all, he blamed the crime increase on repugnance and donald trump but he also said democrats, you better not get on the bad side of this issue because it's going to hurt you so you better start to make the argument, i thought that was explicit admission there may be vulnerability by his party. >> i think you're right. the democrats have lied to themselves the movement, you see the left just fighting the democratic party physically setting the agenda so i think that's admission that this will be a problem but at the end of the day is also a problem for them among black voters, the crimes in these big cities, they are predominantly black and it's awful. paul: you agree with that politically? should. >> i do. i found it interesting because i did not realize republicans ran these big violent cities, new

york, los angeles, philadelphia, baltimore, it's quite a shock but i believe that is correct that we have an issue with the progressives claiming to be acting on the half of these low income minorities when in fact these low income minorities are the ones who need it the most to the extent that we are making police scapegoats, those communities will not be policed as well they need to be. most likely victims of violent crime are low income minorities. paul: thank you all. still ahead, president biden face-to-face with vladimir putin. the russian dictators bad behavior.

white house said this week president biden and russian president vladimir putin in geneva, the announcement comes days after britain's and belarus. alexander arrest and opposition journalist, a series of cyber attacks originating in russia. critics call the june 16 summit with the russian dictator a reward for bad behavior but the white house is calling diplomacy. here is jen psaki responding this week. >> this is how it works, we don't work together, we don't we meet with people only when we agree, it is important to meet with leaders when we have disagreements. we don't regard the meeting the russian president as a reward, we regarded as a vital part of sending americans interests. paul: wheeled back with dan henninger, jason and dan. dan, what you make of this defense of the summit, is it a

good idea? >> i don't think the summit is a good idea in her defense is basically joe biden's defense. this is joe biden siri of diplomacy, he's always had when he was senator and with barack obama as vice president should it comes down to the psaki of talking. the argument against that is the diplomacy as no force unless you have a credible threat behind it and there's no evidence there that joe biden is going into this negotiation with any kind of threat. donald trump was suspected but the trump administration was extraordinarily hard in terms of pushback and ukraine, we don't see anything like that coming out of the biden administration so at this time, there's little to be gained with joe biden giving vladimir putin a photo op

he can use for propaganda back home. paul: jason, my objection is that there's no preconditions basically let's just have a conversation so there's no deal to be cut, i don't see anything other than a one on one conversation which gives putin significant status. >> it also gives other bad actors ideas that they can act out without consequence while the world is watching, putin's behavior and america's response, like dan said, diplomacy for the psaki of diplomacy might as well be appeasement. these strongmen just see it as weakness and softness whether we are talking about north koreans or the chinese looking at this or iran looking at this. the idea that iran would be working out a nuclear deal while

simultaneously supporting hamas war against israel is remarkable but iran is convinced joe biden's administration is cutting a deal and stopping what they are doing in israel so other bad actors are paying attention. paul: have you been following the pipeline from russia to germany which joe biden personally opposes but has sanctions against some of the actors pipeline, what are the implications for this going through? it looks like it will be completed now. what are the implications for russia dealing with europe and u.s. interests? >> it's not a good idea to have a country done so much political damage over the past 13 years to be in control of european energy but that is exactly what they

do. joe biden made calculations that gas pipeline would be completed anyway so he would improve his relationship with germany by not directly imposing the sanctions and that may get you a short term gain to improve your relationship with germany but the rest of europe is in a dangerous place, vladimir putin cut off the gas for some reason. paul: the polls in particular, ukrainians they are upset but they can't do much about it at this stage or is there any chance in germany they will turn against north stream and block it? >> the big question is what happens in their elections later this year? if the pipeline is finished before them, it may be inevitable but there's a growing sentiment within germany within the german people that this is not the kind of country you want

to deepen ties with and essentially at the expense of other countries in the region concerned about this like ukraine or others. paul: dan, briefly, what is putin going to take from this? >> the take away will be that he can continue to push himself upward without any consequence. there were 400 russian incursions last year, that's the kind of thing putin does. whether there, ukraine or elsewhere, i think the take away will be i have the ability to push forward without pushback from the u.s. paul: all right, when we come back, and economist and social commentator as you've never seen him before. our own jason riley. ♪♪

should should

it's beauty, - [macaw vo] pretty boy. - or the beast. - the beauty, - [macaw vo] pretty boy. has failed. the beast, john cox, will shake up sacramento, cut taxes. learn about california's nicest, smartest beast at johncox.com

it's beauty, - [macaw vo] pretty boy. - or the beast. - the beauty, - [macaw vo] pretty boy. has failed. the beast, john cox, will open schools, get our economy roaring.

learn about california's nicest, smartest beast at johncox.com over the past century, economists has become one of the countries most public intellectuals and leading conservative thinker. numerous tv appearances, dozens of books and thousands of columns sold as champions, free markets and personal responsibility. bitter criticism, personal attack. our own jason riley is out with a new book on the 90-year-old scholar called matter, i biography and a documentary on their life. jason, tell us why you decided to write a book, a biography of soul and what you think, tell us a little bit about his life.

>> he was born in 1930 during the depression in north carolina, he was orphaned as a child, he never knew his father who died before he was born in his mother died giving birth so he was raised by a distant relative and they moved in the great migration at the time. he went to harlem when he was nine years old and that's where he was raised from then on and he had a difficult home life, ended up dropping out of school and was drafted into the marines and that's where he turned things around, he got the g.i. bill and went to college and ended up at the university of chicago study under friedman so i wanted to tell his story, that part as well as his legacy, scholarship, his ideas. one reason, we are still talking about a lot of the issues you spent a lifetime writing about.

we're still talking about minimum-wage and social justice and slavery operation and inequality and all the rest he wrote about these issues for a very long time. paul: what you think his biggest intellectual contributions are as you look back over his work? >> i think he distinguished himself primarily by simply being an honest intellectual which may seem like a simple thing but it is not lease space. he someone who comes out of the empirical type of thinking at the university of chicago, he follows that logic, he's less interested in theory, you want to know intentions, what actually happened when these policies are put in place and he's been willing to follow the facts to their conclusions even when they are unpopular or politically incorrect and that's what is really distinguished him.

he's less interested in being popular and being truthful and honest and that has gone him into a lot of trouble with other intellectuals who are more interested in being politically correct or staying away from that. paul: i think i started reading his books 30 or 40 years ago and one of the first things that struck me, a book he did on tracking experience of ethnic groups in america pointing out some were more successful than others and trying to explain why that was it was very data center, he looked at the facts. japanese-americans are effective for this reason, here's what they did. german americans and irish-americans and so on, fascinating empiricism as you say. what about the particular experience about being a black conservative of course you have personal experience but he's

been doing this his whole career in particular difficult time when there weren't very many of them, i guess they're still are but there were fewer at that time. >> absolutely. what he liked stress when interviewers asked him about that, having these views, he would say my views are contrary to black intellectuals and black elite and black intellectuals and elites are more representative of black people in light intellectuals and white elites are white people and that something that's conflated very often and you see it show up on issues today like black support for voter id laws or black opposition to racial preferences. the black elite take opposite position, this issue over defunding police opposed by large majorities of black people was supported by black elite so he's made it not conflated those

two in correcting others who do so and yes as you know, the left controls not only the media but also controlling intellectuals, the academy, awards and prizes and i think the decisions do not play footsie with them and it's cost him, it's one reason he is not as well-known as folks like nicole hannah jones, even though it's far more wide-ranging than theirs but also much deeper and rigorous in his analysis. paul: thank you, jason. fascinating. one more break, when we come back, hits and misses. ♪♪

lower interest rate. my principal is going down. sofi is a place where you can start to tackle those money goals today. compared to where i was three years ago, i'm kinda killing it. ♪♪

i've got moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. now, there's skyrizi. with skyrizi, 3 out of 4 people achieved 90% clearer skin at 4 months, after just 2 doses. skyrizi may increase your risk of infections and lower your ability to fight them. before treatment, your doctor should check you

for infections and tuberculosis. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms such as fevers, sweats, chills, muscle aches, or coughs or if you plan to or recently received a vaccine. ♪ nothing is everything ♪ now is the time to ask your dermatologist about skyrizi. i brought in ensure max protein, with thirty grams of protein. those who tried me felt more energy in just two weeks! ( sighs wearily ) here, i'll take that! ( excited yell ) woo-hoo! ensure max protein. with thirty grams of protein, one-gram of sugar, and nutrients to support immune health! ( abbot sonic ) >> time now for hits and misses of the week. jason start us off. >> paul, this is a hit for the increasing number of states that are using lotteries and prizes

to encourage people to get vaccinated. they now include states like new york, and california and colorado and ohio and a bunch of others. i've argued for simply paying people to get the shot but this might be the next best thing and incentives matter, and financial incentives have been used in public health in past like encouraging people to get flu shots and it has worked so i hope more states go down this path. >> all right jillian. >> study out of london, it is looking at dogs being able to sniff and detect covid. and what they found was pretty incredible some of the dogs have a 90% accuracy rate and vastly prefer that to getting swab up my nose and more comfortable an it is adorable. so promising scientific development and very good. paul: dan. >> my hit goes to the superblood moon this week which dazzled millions across globe including total lunar eclipse in many

place look i love these massive moon when is they appear and so i had notes in calendar for days to watch superblood moon alast moon glow over manhattan blocked by rain, lightning, and everyone the threat of hailstone. so i ended up watching superblood moon on television like a lot of people maybe next time. paul: all right adam. >> well it is a miss this week from the defense contractor lockheed martin we recently learned that company had a group of white male executives participate in a 16-hour diversity training so they could unlearn their white mental privilege i think self-reelection is a good thing but america is probably safer if lockheed martin focussings on killing machine and instead of teaching employees to be woke. paul: okay thank you all and remember if you have the your own hit or miss, be sure to tweet it to us at jer on fnc

thank to my panel and to all of you for watching, i'm paul gigot hope to see you right here, next week. ♪ ♪ >> people are ready to get out as americans are hitting the road and flying the skies in numbers not seen in well over a year as millions look to get out of town this holiday weekend aaa expecting a 60% jump in travel over last year's memorial day weekend. with about 37 million americans leaving their homes as the country begins to enter a post pandemic phase. hello everyone welcome to brand new hour of fox news live, our arthel neville hello mr. hall. >>